Targeting voters, Karl Rove style

With the Republican National Committee starved for money, a new outfit masterminded by former Bush strategist Karl Rove has targeted Washington and seven other states for “an intensive turnout effort” for Republicans this fall.

American Crossroads is the third Republican-linked “independent” group to target Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and the Evergreen State for special attention in the 2010 mid-term elections.

The group was organized by Rove and former Republican National Chairman Ed Gillespie. It is headed by Steven Law, formerly general counsel and chief legal officer for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

It is creating a $10 million program called MOVERS – Mobilizing Our Voters to End Reckless Spending.

Reckless spending, during the Bush administration, wasn’t an issue in 2006 as Rove worked strategy in an unsuccessful effort to have Republicans hold Congress. But it is a theme in 2010 as the GOP targets Democrats ans seeks to reclaim power and control on Capitol Hill.

“We have an unprecedented opportunity to restore balance and fiscal responsibility to Washington this fall,” Law said in a press statement.

American Crossroads said “targeted voters” in Washington, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, Nevada and New Hampshire “will receive multiple contacts and followups” paid for by the group.

Murray has become a targeted senator for a variety of Republican fronts.

She was attacked earlier this summer in a $750,000, four-day “educational advocacy campaign” by a group called the American Advocacy Network.

A group that tried to block Wall Street reform legislation, the Committee for Truth in Politics, is currently airing $300,000 worth of TV spots in an “independent” expenditure against Murray.

The committees provide political junkies a trip down memory lane in Republican politics.

The American Action Network is chaired by Fred Malek, once deputy chief of the scandal-ridden Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP) in the 1972 Nixon campaign. Its leaders include defeated Republican Sens. Norm Coleman from Minnesota and George Allen from Virginia.

The chief public face of the Committee for Truth in Politics is James Bopp, Jr. , an Indiana attorney who has waged a nationwide campaign against laws that limit campaign spending and require disclosure of contributors’ names.

Bopp is counsel for Protect Marriage Washington, which has sought to keep secret names of those who signed petitions for Referendum 71. The measure sought to block Washington’s “everything but marriage” benefits for same-sex couples.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which plans to spend $75 million in the fall campaign, has yet to surface in Washington’s campaign.